TechStuff Classic: How Nanotechnology Works

a fascinating one. It's also pretty complicated to talk about, but Lauren Voge Obama and I try to break it down in this classic episode, So enjoy. So I got a little topic I want to talk about today, very little, tiny. In fact, you might call it nano. Yes, in fact, we would, because that's the topic technology. Everybody. Everybody's doing nano. Yeah, everyone is, and depending on who you talk to, it's

either gonna destroy the world or rescue it. Yeah. So, um, what's the big deal, so to speak, A small thing? The big deal is that it's a very very little deal. In fact, one billionth of a deal or a nanometer is one billionth of a meter and uh, to give you an idea of how tiny this is the average human hair is one hundred micrometers in diameter. Now, a micrometer is a thousand nanometers, so that means that the average human hair is one hundred thousand nanometers in diameter.

I should point out that that's average. I've seen a number of numbers. Yeah, it's usually between sixty and one twenty. That's normally, that's the average I normally see. But one hundred, it's fair enough to say. So, yes, some people have very fine hair. But we're kind of splitting hairs now, aren't we. You've walked right into that one. So we're talking about things on the tiny, tiny scale. Now, we're not talking about the atomic scale, because that's actually smaller

than the nano scale. Yeah, because an atom is about an atom. When you take the entire atom into account, the average atom is about point one nanometers in diameter. That's pretty teeny. So it's one tenth of a of a nanometer. That's the atomic scale. We're getting pretty close to the atomic scale. Yeah. Yeah, Now, if you want to talk about the nucleus of an atom, do you want to how big that is? Yes? How big? Of course, you want to know how big it is? A pleat cheese.

I thought I had you. It is point zero zero zero zero one nanometers wide. Good grief, that's just the nucleus. So when you when you strip away the electron shell, it's tiny indeed. But anyway, nanoscale, we're talking about things on this really tiny scale. Building machines that are on this scale. Usually people say between one and one nanometers

is kind of within the nanoscale range. Um, building not just machines, but but really specific machines that can actually potentially change the world, and um, it's it's pretty phenomenal to think of building anything on that smaller scale. You can't even look at these things with a light microscope because they're so tiny because the the wavelength for visible light on the small scale of it over on the violet spectrum, that's about four hundred nanometers for a wavelength.

So we're talking about having to use things like scanning telling microscopes to look at the nano scale. Now, these are special microscopes that emit a small charge electric charge and then it interprets the data, sends it to a computer, and you look at an image on a computer screen, so you're not even really looking at the physical thing. You're looking at a computer image representation of that thing. Right, So, if if nanotechnology is that small, how do you make it?

Because you know, there are a lot of people who talk about things on the nano scale, like, uh, you know computer processor chips using nanotechnology, Uh, nano robots, which I'm told you might know something about a little bit. You know, you know all kinds of things. How are you building these tiny, tiny things if you can't even really see them, if you were depending on a machine to do it, for you to be able to look at them, that's a tricky question. I'll there are two

different ways, right. There's the the top down approach, which is where you actually drop stuff on it from above. Not quite, but you build each component and you then put everything together. It's it's kind of like the classic way you build anything, right, Like you would use a top down approach to build say a car. You know, you build the frame and then you attach various things

to the frame. I'm talking like I know anything about cars. Um, so different podcasts, different podcast Scott is way better at it than I am. So the other way is the bottom up approach. This is interesting, This is where you're actually building things kind kind of um, like you're growing them almost like you're growing machines UM, and you're doing it adom by atom, molecule by molecule, and uh, I'm not really sure which way it's gonna go. This is

an early early silent science. Even though it's been around for a couple of decades, we're still, you know, just barely in the beginning of it. So we'll see which method ends up being the the prevalent one. UM. But there are people working on it on either end, so to speak, and to give you an idea of how possible this is. In so we're talking about almost twenty

years ago. Uh, there was an IBM scientist named Don Eisler who led a team who demonstrated that they can manipulate individual atoms and they used a scanning tunneling microscope to move atoms to spell I B M, I am so not shot. Yeah, So you can actually there are pictures of this on the internet. If you google you know IBM scanning tunneling microscope. Uh, you can find pictures of this where you see the image where each dot represents a separate atom. So they actually use the atoms

to spell the word. Well, and in two thousand four, again IBM scientists are kind of leading the research in this. Uh, they were in Zerich and they they showed that they were able to change the charge state of individual atoms by adding or removing electrons from an individual atom. Yeah.

So again they used a scanning telling microscope and they had a charged point on the tip of that microscope, which comes to such an incredibly fine point that they can do these things that can remove an electron from one atom and and put it onto another. So we have the technology to manipulate individual atoms. Now we have to get to the point where we can build my lecular structures that work as tiny machines. All right, And there are a couple different ways we can look into that.

One of the really popular things that people have been talking about recently are carbon nanotubes. Have you heard of these? Yeah? Yeah, it's the stuff that's supposed to, you know, do everything everything you've ever heard of. Essentially, carbon nanotubes can apparently do well. There there's such a versatile structure. Yeah, and uh, you know, I'm very resilient. Yep. Yeah. It actually all depends on how you how you roll the Yeah, how

you roll the tube. So, carbon nanotubes, the way you create a carbon nanotube in general them I'm way oversimplifying here, but you take a sheet of carbon atoms, all right, they form molecular structure where it looks very like it looks like a series of hexagons. And what you then do is you roll this into a tube. You roll the sheet into a tube, and depending on the angle you use when you roll it into a tube, that

dictates them the properties the carbon nanotube will have. So you know that, of course graphite is composed of carbon, as are diamonds. Yes, but these two materials are have very different properties. Graphites very soft, it's opaque. Uh, diamonds not so soft, usually pretty clear. But the reason why they're different is because of the way these molecules are arranged.

The same thing with carbon nanotubes. So if you arrange them as specific way by rolling the sheet in a specific direction, you can create a material that's hundreds of times stronger than steel and six times is light. Well what could what could possibly be a problem with Well, yeah, the problem, as you pointed out, as it's very expensive. It's there's no easy way to do it. It's no easy efficient way right now that we can do it

on a mass scale. So it can be done. It's just gonna be done in very small amounts, like on the nano scale amounts, and it's being done in laboratories and it's gonna take several years for that to move from the laboratory to the production room. And um, when it does, then we're gonna start seeing lots and lots of stuff with carbon nanotubes and it we we see some already. There's some products that use carbon nanotube technology already, but it's not on the scale that the you know,

the future of nanotechnology kind of promises us. But I've seen things like everything from a Spider Man type suit made out of carbon nanotubes because if you roll them a certain way, they work very like a Gecks skin. You could climb walls and things with this stuff, which is pretty neat. Yeah, yeah, I've got one on back order. So anyway, Um, so that's kind of giving you the lowdown on on where we are now and and you can find technology that does incorporate things on the nano scale.

In fact, you're probably using one right now to listen to us. Yeah, because if you're using any sort of device that has a microchip, chances are you've gotta transistors on that microchip that are on somewhere in the nano scale. I mean, if you have a recent computer, then it's definite, you know, as long as it's not I guess a netbook. You know, if you have one that has a powerful microprocessor, you're talking about transistors that are only a few dozen

nanometers wide. So for example, Intel's uh I cors seven I believe are what fortnomes wide? I think, yes, except it's Core I seven. Thank Yeah, I should have said to Haleem, I wrote about it as the Nehalem. But yes, uh those are um, those are like like forty five nanometers wide. I mean you're talking about stuff that's already out on the market that's at this scale. Hey guys, before we continue this discussion about nanotechnology, let's take a

tiny little break to thank our sponsors. It was looking at applications of nanotechnology and I found an article on on c net that in which they were talking about using your voice to charge your cell phone. And uh, apparently in order to do this they use they would they would use they should say, would they would use? Barry Um tight nate crystals which are twenty three nanometers wide, and to do that, it actually creates piezo electricity. It transfers, transfers,

it transfers of physical energy into electrical energy. Yes, exactly, Karma. Yeah, so you know that's that's pretty neat to imagine that. You know, these crystals that are are you know, in the teens are not teens, but in the dual digit nanometers size. You know, that's wow, so um so piezzo electric that that essentially means that you're converting kinetic energy

into elect to see or vice versa. And then no, I was just gonna say, this is the same sort of stuff you you've have in things like microphones and speakers, that kind of thing where it's converting uh, one form of energy into another. And crystal there's certain crystals that can do this, like quartz that that have this property innately athium, tillium anyway. Um. And then they're the nano robots, which are great for you know everything. I read this

article written by you know this Jonathan Strickling guy. Yeah, and vaguely remember writing that it's been it's been more than a year now. Yeah, but yeah, so nano robots, um, all kinds of medical applications for those. Yeah, here's the

here's the interesting thing about nano robots. Um, they don't exist. Well, yeah, we're pretty much in the micro stage right now to be to be really fair, But assuming that we ever get down to the nano size and are able to build nano size robots, the applications are pretty amazing from a medical standpoint. Um. For example, let's say that you have a disease that's affecting a very specific part of

your body. And let's say the normal way to treat this disease would be that you would have you would take you know, medication. Well, I'm thinking medication really, but we can get to surgery to in a minute. Um. So let's say that it would normally do that you would either get a shot or take some medicine orally or whatever. You would have to wait for that medicine to make its way through your system, uh and to

eventually affect the infected area. Okay, so the medicine is already getting diluted through your bloodstream, it's taking time for it to reach the infected area. Takes time for it to to uh take effect at the area and so the whole recovery rate is slower than it would ideally be. Now with a nano robot, theoretically you could direct it, or if you could find a way of making it autonomous, it could direct itself to the infected area and deliver

a much smaller payload of medication directly to the infected area. So, for one thing, you're not going to have the side effects that you might have experienced through a larger dose of medication because the dose is much much smaller. For another, the application is immediate to the infected area, so you're talking about it being much more efficient and having a smaller impact on the patient's overall health. So that's that's

an ideal situation. Now for surgery, as you were pointing out, that's also a possibility you could create nano robots that would have things like laser cutters that would essentially act like a little scalpel, but they would be the incredibly precise, far more precise than any human would be with a scalpel, because they're on the nanoscale. You're talking about something so small that it's blood cells are dwarfing it. So for

the could be an incredibly precise tool. I'm granted. Do you think, well, with advice that's small, how could it really be useful? A lot of these future projections suggests that you would not have just one of these little nano robots working. They would there'd be thousands, perhaps millions of them working together at the same time, and uh, then you don't have to find a way of getting

them out. Or potentially you would have nano robots in you all the time, and they could even act as a preventive measure and keep you healthy and head off any problems before they could really start, even uh bringing up symptoms. Yeah, you were saying in the article that they can be used to do things like break up blood clots or you know, kidney stones. Oh man, and they say breaking up is hard to do. You know someone who has suffered from kidney stones. I gotta tell

you I would love to have had some. Yeah, if nothing else then just to start have someone specific I could scream at um instead of just the the the directionless screaming that I did while I actually had them. We'll be right back with some more big ideas about tiny technology in just a moment after this quick break. Now there's some big problems that we have to overcome. First, we have to be able to create UM power systems

on that scale, something to power these robots. So we're talking about batteries and capacitors that are have to be incredibly tiny UM and that's that's a big challenge. Now, some doctors have and engineers have got around that by creating robots that that propelled themselves, or actually they don't

really propel themselves, they are propelled externally. UM. There's one that used m r I machine and you would use the magnets in the m R I really to act the robot, so you could actually, you know, kind of the robot really was more passive, but you could direct it to specific spot within an artery system. Now, I should point out that the scientists who did this did it with a pig. Um they were not doing human testing, but it worked went through the pig's arteries, so you know,

that's ah, it's nothing to sneeze at. Actually, I was reading about a completely different application of nanotechnology. There was sort of fascinating UM. Jennifer Lowell was blogging about it for uh for seen it, and she was talking about the possibility that you could use nanotech to alter food on the microscopic scale. UM. She actually was quoting Steve

Bogan and the Guardian. UM. They were talking about essentially how you could if you had a food that to which you were allergic, you could maybe make alterations to it so that it would pass from your body without being a problem. That would be interesting trick is you know you could, uh, you could have problems with people who don't particularly genetically modified food. You know, there's a lot of people that are kind of creeped out by

the frank and food. UM. And you're talking about messing with things down again on a very very tiny level. So that's pretty that's pretty significant. Um. But Bogan also mentioned the possibility that packaging could be made um to where the nanotechnology inside the food packaging could sniff out when you know, the food started to give off gassing as it was decomposing and would change color to go, oh, well,

you know this thing, it's started to turn brown. We need to toss it out without even you know, sniffing it or you know, sticking your finger on it and going it feels kind of weird. Yeah, that would have prevented many, many memorable nights that I've had in my past. Yeah, I'm sure anyway, So, uh and and to talk a little bit more about building these robots. One of the one of the things that scientists are working on is to try and create specific can of nano robots called

assemblers assemblers. Yet, now, assemblers do what you would think they do. They assemble other nano machines. So they could assemble other assemblers, So then you have a self replicating nano robot. Do you see where there might be a problem with this? I feel its edging gradually towards the singularity. Right, So we're talking about the potential for nano robots to

replicate themselves at such an incredible rate. And remember, as soon as one gets replicated, it can start replicating, and then the ones that replicates can start replicating, so it's exponential growth. Right. Um, there's a scenario called gray goo. Gray goo is this this doomsday scenario where nano robots in order to build more nano robots, they have to create it out of something. You know, they're not building

it out of nothing. So what they're doing is they're they're in this scenario anyway, it is taking carbon out of the environment and then building robots with them, so that we're right. Everything a lot of stuff is made out of carbon on on our planet, turns out, So the idea here would be that the robots would start to consume all the carbon in an effort to build more robots. And of course, since it's exponential, it gets

faster and faster every passing second. So this Tuesday scenario has the entire world just turning into this writhing mass of gray goo as nano robots take over everything. I'm totally seeing the Sorcerer's Apprentice in my head. Sleep well tonight. Yeah, I'm glad that we were able to take such a rosy idea and go there with it. Well, I mean, it's it's obviously a worst case scenario, but uh, there are a lot of First of all, we're decades away

from getting there. Second of all, there's no guarantee that that's what would happen if we even were able to create the nanotech assemblers. So I think we don't have to worry just yet. When the Singularity comes, then we'll start worrying, all right, So we got about twenty years al right, guys, I hope you enjoyed this classic episode of text Stuff. It was a lot of fun to research. I always love the sort of science fiction ee kind

of topics that we can look into. If you guys have any suggestions for future tech stuff topics, let me know. Reach out on Twitter or on Facebook. We use the handle text stuff HSW for both, and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.